Given the secrecy that’s surrounded Staal’s condition, hearing that it is indeed a concussion and that he’s had to be held back completely from physical exertion is disturbing. After all, when Staal was crushed by a hit from his brother Eric Staal last season, Marc tried to tough it out and keep playing last season only to have to sit out games at a time. Toughing it out when you’ve got a concussion only leads to bigger problems. It’s no wonder that Marc has had these problems now.

While Marc continues to be out, you have to wonder just what was going on with the Rangers’ trainers and doctors to allow him to both keep playing games and then come back to training camp this year still dealing with issues. At least they stopped him before things could get even worse, but for now the Rangers have to live with the mess they helped along in the first place.

Hockey’s enduring tolerance for and celebration of fighting will almost certainly be tested anew now that Probert, more pugilist than playmaker, has become the first contemporary hockey player to show C.T.E. after death. Boston University’s Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy had previously diagnosed the disease in a long-retired player, Reggie Fleming, a 1960s-era enforcer who played before the full adoption of helmets.

“How much is the hockey and how much is the fighting, we don’t really know,” said Dr. Robert Cantu, co-director of the Boston University center and a prominent neurosurgeon in the area of head trauma in sports. “We haven’t definitely established that the skills of hockey as a sport lead to a certain percentage of participants developing C.T.E. But it can happen to hockey players, and while they’re still relatively young.”

Boogaard was just 28 years old when he died in May, so that would probably ranks as being “relatively young.” We’ll keep an eye on the situation if the results are revealed because similar results for Boogaard might make the issue of fighting that much more controversial for the NHL.